Your conclusion doesn't necessarily follow from your set up. They may have decided not to implement it because it's a pain in the ass (as I've talked about in my other comments). It probably wasn't worth their time and money in a bunch of different ways, not least of which is that it may not give the user experience that they wanted out of it.

Look, you and I actually agree on this. Some of the steps that I had to go through were insane. We were working with a Kinect, so you had to trigger a save, dive for your XBox and yank out the network cable and the memory card at exactly the right time. At that point, you're TRYING to corrupt the data. But developers aren't just allowed to let bad things happen, even if it seems like it's the user's fault. Weak passwords and bad answers to security questions are ALSO technically the user's fault, but we can see how far it gets a company to blame users for those sorts of things.

But pathologically worst case behaviour aside, even normal behaviour can be a pain to handle. What if your app had some data saved on the card, but you removed it in the interim and now it needs it? Okay, you prompt for the data, but the user doesn't have it--they left it at home. Now what? Do you create new data? Refuse to progress?

Okay, you create new data. Now the user gets the card and puts it in, and you've got DUPLICATE data. Great. Merge? Throw away?

One storage device is a lot easier for the mobile paradigm, I feel. It's not the same as a desktop system--manipulating data is a lot easier on a desktop. Mobile systems should be lightweight and streamlined. But that's just my opinion.

*sniff* An anon doesn't like my opinion but has no ability to hold a conversation and discuss anything on their own merits. I'm so sad. :( :( :(

SD Cards are a whole other world of complexity; it's no wonder Android has started to clamp down on how they work somewhat. I worked on an XBox 360 game and I had to deal with the TCR requirements regarding removable storage. They're the worst. If someone removes the device during a save, you have to deal with that. If they remove it right before or right after a save, that's something else too. Basically, if anyone does anything with the removable storage at any time, you have to handle a bunch of exceptions, and then you also have to handle the case where the data is corrupted. It's awful.

Anyway, yes, you're probably right. I don't know what that kind of storage costs and what the economies of scale are, but I'm sure Apple could soak them up if they wanted to. But to a certain extent, that choice exists merely so people can feel like they HAVE a choice, and people like that. Even if zero people bought the 16GB version, it's there to make the other two options look better. But that's what the market will bear, I guess. Capitalism. What're you gonna do?

I type one handed all the time while walking on my iPhone. Autocorrect guesses correctly more often than not.

The new shift key is 100% garbage, though. You have to wonder which exec at Apple has made that their pet feature. That's the only possible way that such a wholly unintuitive thing still exists. I've yet to meet a single Apple user, no matter how partisan, claim that the iOS 7 shift key makes even the slightest bit of sense.

Yes and no. I actually really think the (new) BB phones are pretty neat. I like that with BB10, they really swung for the fences with the interface design. To an extent, it's a crippled ecosystem and that's not really about the OS any more. They missed the boat. (That said, people will stick with very old BB phones because they can't give up the keyboard. By most measures, they're really not good phones any more.)

No, I'm talking about all sorts of other phones--Android ones, honestly. People will put up with a really garbage phone just because it has a physical keyboard.

I've got a lot more respect for Blackberry than, say, Samsung. Samsung capitalised on an opportunity and makes a lot of money, but they've never, ever had the focus or innovation of Apple and Blackberry.

I ordered the 16GB version because my on-board data needs aren't heavy. I'm near wifi 90% of my life, and so I'm willing to stream or re-download a lot of things on my phone. I've got a 32GB iPad because that needs to store magazines and bigger games and things, but I like my phone to be a bit leaner. Saving $100 for that was totally worth it for me. I wouldn't have objected to a 32GB entry-level, but 16 is fine too.

But some people really love to have EVERYTHING with them. They spend a lot of time travelling or out of wifi range and they've got a limited plan (so do I, actually, but that doesn't matter as much to me). It's the same sort of person that always bought the biggest iPod, so they could carry ALL their music with them at once. Me, I'm happy to have a few playlists and 8 hours of decent music with me at all times, even for long trips. Those people are going to love the 128GB version and be excited to pay the extra $100 over the 64GB version, no question.

I think you're overselling it somewhat. I've tried the swype systems, and I always devolve to just tapping. Same with my friends that have access to it. Out of 4 of us, all of us hate swype based systems. That's not data, obviously, it's just an anecdote. But I've yet to see anyone stop using the keyboard, let alone a phone, just because the keyboard isn't what they expect. (The lone exception being people that like hardware keyboards. They will stick with a sub-standard phone just for the better typing experience.)

I would also question whether Apple has ever lost anyone permanently that wasn't lost from the start. I've seen a lot of people in comment threads today consider Apple's phones again because it was *screen size* that was holding them back.

I've actually always really liked the Apple keyboard; I have a lot fewer problems with it than other people, though I couldn't tell you why. I borrowed a Nexus 4 and hated the keyboard (and didn't want to install a new one for the short time that I had it) but my hate of the keyboard wasn't actually a dealbreaker even if I'd had to use it forever. If I'd liked other things about the phone, I would've put up with the keyboard I didn't like, no question.

It's a fair opinion to have, but I really don't see any evidence for the grandiose claims you're making.

It probably wasn't; the phone was wiped before I got it, and I downloaded almost nothing. I suppose it's possible that it was--what, twitter? I guess?--or something, but there was almost nothing running on the phone. I checked the battery manager, and it just showed a monotonic decrease in battery.

We have that here, too; I've got a CDN $50 limit. No fear, I know the USA isn't the world. :)

If the only thing Apple ever does consistently is break the control of the carriers, we should still all bow down. The carriers in North America are all terrible. Any time anyone knocks them down a peg, I'm happy. If Google'd done it, I'd sing the same praises, just as loudly.

Oh please. I've seen that graphic, and it's obviously misleading. Yes, there are features that the Nexus 4 had years ago.

One of them is a feature I don't even want, but I'm forced to get--a 4.7" screen. I really rather prefer a 3.5" or 4" screen.

You can't ACTUALLY make payments with Nexus 4 because the tech is there but the infrastructure isn't. Ironically, Apple doing NFC payments may make it possible for someone to use that feature.

And then (as per the article) there's Touch ID. And the 64-bit A8 (the A7 is still beating new phones on single-core benchmarks, sunspider, etc. even though it's a year old). I get a permissions system that isn't ridiculous and if I have a problem with the phone, I can take it into a store and have someone look at it. I don't have to send it back for service, or talk to the carrier.

Oh, and the Nexus 4 has famously bad battery life. I borrowed one for a while from a friend to try it out, and I could lose 60% of the battery in two hours while it was sitting in a locker while I was swimming. My venerable iPhone 4 would lose 0-2% in the same time frame.

These graphics are just elaborate trolling--you and I both know that the Nexus 4 wasn't actually any more usable than the iPhone 5 at the time, and it's obviously not even on the same page right now. The devices are getting closer and closer to parity, but that's not actually surprising to anyone except the most bitter partisans.

Well, I'm not sure. But don't worry, I'm sure the order page won't have the same capacity problems!

It won't, actually. Apple's prices don't drop in the middle of a cycle. It'll cost exactly the same in July of next year. In August, you may see carriers cut the prices to entice people to clear their existing stock.

How have people voted this up? I'm not a political scholar, but the goals of communism are generally diametrically opposed to rule by a dictator.

Communism works on small scales. Family scales, generally. I'd give my sister money if she needed it. She'd give me something that I needed. We don't have an economic transaction--we do things based on our mutual benefit. We share because we know that in the future, it'll probably come out even.

It seems to me that real communism wouldn't require anyone to dictate anything because people would be acting communally. They would willingly pool their resources, share and take care of one another. Tribal societies are and were like this.

Scaling up communism has always been the problem. It's easy to come up with scenarios where it works on small scales. It's the scaling up that lets the tyrants in. There's always an opportunist that wants to be the top of the heap. Those people aren't communists at all, I reckon.

Capitalism, so far, has scaled better than communism. There are a lot of problems with it (and most of them seem to be a matter of governments being too hands off, rather than too hands on, if you ask me), but it seems to have done a better job distributing resources than communism has. But if millions of people ever decide, en masse, to give up their possessions and work communally and REFUSE to allow a dictator or a leader, maybe it would work.